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A review by juvation
History of the Second World War by B.H. Liddell Hart
5.0
What a ride! This is a 700+ page, exhaustively researched and almost painfully detailed, account of every last corner of WW2, written by possibly the period's most distinguished historian.
From this dispassionate academic angle, even the famous actions look completely different, and the big victories and defeats look way less organised and more chaotic. And it's only through examining many actions that's it's possible to get a handle on Rommel's genius, for example, or the strengths and weaknesses of the Montgomery or Patton.
The main picture that emerges is how small seemingly irrelevant events can have such a huge effect on something as enormous as this war. It would only have taken a handful of decisions taken differently to prevent the whole thing, for example, or shorten it by almost a year, or keep the Russians out completely.
Finally, with the war as it stands, it's quite clear that the Hitler lost his war by refusing to let his military do its job. The mistake of dictators since time immemorial. Left to their own devices, the German generals could have ground the Allies to a stalemate from which suing for peace would be the only option. Rather sobering.
From this dispassionate academic angle, even the famous actions look completely different, and the big victories and defeats look way less organised and more chaotic. And it's only through examining many actions that's it's possible to get a handle on Rommel's genius, for example, or the strengths and weaknesses of the Montgomery or Patton.
The main picture that emerges is how small seemingly irrelevant events can have such a huge effect on something as enormous as this war. It would only have taken a handful of decisions taken differently to prevent the whole thing, for example, or shorten it by almost a year, or keep the Russians out completely.
Finally, with the war as it stands, it's quite clear that the Hitler lost his war by refusing to let his military do its job. The mistake of dictators since time immemorial. Left to their own devices, the German generals could have ground the Allies to a stalemate from which suing for peace would be the only option. Rather sobering.